Creative Informatics: the role of ‘the university’ in Edinburgh and South East Scotland's creative cluster

This positioning paper reflects on the idea of ‘the university’ as a creative industries intermediary, through a case study of the Creative Informatics programme. It asks where ‘the university’ fits within the context of the creative industries and creative economy, and its value in that ecosystem. Creative Informatics was a five-year R&D programme (2018–2024), part of the UK-wide Creative Industries Clusters Programme (CICP) funded by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to encourage innovation in and through the creative industries. The programme was a partnership between two universities, The University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh Napier University; creative industries support organisation Creative Edinburgh; and startup incubator Codebase. Creative Informatics leveraged and mediated university structures, while also attempting to position itself as embedded in the Edinburgh and South-East Scotland ‘Cluster’ through its networked relationships with non-academic partners. As well as funding creative industries activity, the programme included supporting activities designed to develop and maintain connections between practitioners and organisations, beyond the time-limited operation of the CICP. As such, this paper frames Creative Informatics as a temporary organisation and creative industries intermediary that operates both within and without the permanent construct of ‘the university’ and asks what happens next to the community of creative practitioners it has supported. In considering these intermediaries through the lens of a value constellation, this paper explores if and how the balance of power between cities and regions were challenged by or reproduced through the CICP. • The university as a creative industries intermediary. • Fluid, temporary circumstances of cluster funding, against permanence of university. • Tensions between city as locus of power and creative industries regional networks. • Scaffolding through tangible and intangible support. • Universities as key locus in the urban-creativity nexus and value constellation.